by Jackson Ford
THIRTY-FIVE
Teagan
It takes us a lot longer than I’d like to leave the stadium. It’s not that the soldiers try to stop us – they’re far more interested in the people coming in than the ones going out. But there are huge crowds now, packing the tunnels and the exits. A sea of shaken, shattered people: injured, hungry, cold, drenched from the rain.
Turns out Reggie’s sandwich rationing was a damn good idea. The two mystery meat sandwiches she to gave to Africa and me tasted like squashed ass cakes, but they beat standing in the huge, unruly lines for food.
I don’t even want to talk about what the stadium bathrooms were like. Let’s just say I’m glad my Jordans are water-resistant.
Africa and I push our way through, sorry-ing and excuse-me-ing out of the south exit, onto the main stadium plaza. Jesus, there’s a lot of people. How many before this gets out of control? I was too young to remember Hurricane Katrina, but I’ve read about what happened at the Superdome, and it did not sound fun.
I nearly come to a complete stop when I remember that Nic is still in there. If it does turn into the Superdome, he’ll be right in the middle of it.
You know what? Better in there than out here. I don’t want him anywhere near me, not while I try track down a kid who can bury people with his mind. And I don’t want him outside the stadium, period. If this kid causes yet another quake, at least Nic will be somewhere that already has emergency supplies.
You just want to cover your own ass, so you can sit in your apartment and live your little life and not have to worry about anyone.
Asshole.
Has he been thinking that this whole time? That I’m not interested in helping other people? Me: the girl who’s now heading away from food and shelter so she can stop Junior from causing the apocalypse?
Well, fuck him. I feel a sick a pleasure in imagining him safe, or safer than I am right now, anyway. Stay with the nice soldiers, Nic. I’ll be fine.
Africa, mercifully, says nothing. Doesn’t even look at me.
We head down the plaza steps into the parking lot, dodging small clusters of people. Mothers clutching babies, groups of men in thick jackets smoking cigarettes, kids running everywhere. Like the world’s most fucked-up street festival. But there’s a bit more space to move now, and we make our way out of the stadium grounds, heading for Chinatown. Above us, helicopters buzz back and forth, their rotors audible over the weirdly quiet streets.
It’s hard going. And not just because of the terrain. I can’t stop thinking of Paul. Replaying what happened over and over and over. Trying to find an angle, a way to make it come out different. But it’s like the ending of Game of Thrones. You can wish as much as you want, but it will still suck, and it will suck for all eternity.
I’m comparing Paul’s death to a fucking TV show now? Jesus. I reach up, wipe my face, skin slick under my fingers from the rain. My eyes feel puffy, my eyelids twice their usual size.
I shouldn’t be surprised at the rubble, at the cracked streets and broken buildings. I should be immune by now. But this quake is the gift that keeps on giving, and it’s hard not to feel appalled at the destruction. There are no street lights – no power anywhere, except for Dodger behind us – but the night is lit by a thousand glimmering fires. The rain seems to be keeping most of them under control, but it comes with the fun side effect of chilling us to the bone.
I hug myself as we close in on the freeway, rubbing my upper arms. It looks like the Sunset Boulevard overpass has collapsed, but that’s OK: we can cross the 110, which isn’t elevated. It’ll put us right onto Figueroa. Straight shot to downtown from there.
God, what I wouldn’t give for us to still have the bikes.
We left the stadium at around 9 p.m. – amazingly, the big clock on the scoreboard was still working. I keep checking my phone, more out of habit than anything else – we’ve been on the move for about an hour, although it feels much longer. Africa and I walk in silence, trudging through the rain. There are groups of people on the streets, most of them heading in the direction of the stadium, looking cold and wet and exhausted. I’m a little worried they might try rob us, like the fuckwits from before. Not that it’s going to end well for them – I have reached the point where I give zero fucks about using my powers in public – but I’d prefer not to. It’s a relief that, for the most part, they just ignore us.
It’s not long before we come across our first collapsed skyscraper.
It’s crashed down onto Figueroa, utterly wrecking the buildings around it. Despite the rain, the air is choked with dust – we’re probably a shit-ton of toxic chemicals. And there must be people buried under the rubble, too. That thought is enough to force a long, slow breath out of my lungs, a breath that really wants to be a scream of anger.
This kid. This fucking kid.
Africa and I come to a stop in the middle of the street, staring at the wreckage. Should I help out? See if I can pull parts of the rubble up? But there are already two or three emergency crews clambering over the building like ants, helicopters with spotlights hovering overhead. Plus, I’m not sure we have time. What’s more important? Getting a few people out of the rubble? Or stopping the kid before he causes another earthquake that’s even worse than this one?
“Let’s go around,” I say to Africa. He grunts, but follows me. For the first time, I clock just how quiet he is. He hasn’t said anything since we left the stadium. Not a single word.
Of course, it’s not just the one fallen skyscraper. At least three in the downtown area have collapsed. We keep running up against dead ends, jagged mountains of rubble, clouds of smoke and ash. The third one is the worst. It took a whole block down with it, and we can’t even get close. It’s a shattered mess, cloaked in thick, noxious clouds that the rain does nothing to disperse.
We beat a hasty retreat, back to Grand and 2nd. It’s past 10 p.m. now. Whatever energy the mystery meat sandwiches gave us has long since been used up. I put my hands on my knees, head hanging, trying to make myself think. “OK. OK… if we go back to Westlake, we should be able to go round the damage.”
Africa doesn’t respond.
“We’ll go down on the other side of the 110,” I say. “Through Pico-Union. It’ll take us longer, but—hey, dude. Dude!”
He’s walking away. In the opposite direction from where I told him we should go.
“Uh, Africa? It’s this way, man.”
Africa ignores me, trudging away. Head down, arms tightly folded. What the fuck is he doing?
With a barely suppressed snarl, I take off after him, a stitch digging into my side. “Hello? Earth to Africa?”
He spits something ugly-sounding in Wolof. Then: “Just go. I will be fine.”
“Um, how about no? Where do you think you’re going?”
“Skid Row.”
“Dude, that’s—My way’s a lot faster. You know that, right?”
“I’m not going to the museum. I’m going to Skid Row.”
“What, you’re just going there? Like going, and not coming back? What the fuck are you talking—”
“Because Jeannette is there!”
He roars it in my face. It’s an Africa roar, so it’s lucky my feet don’t leave the concrete.
He points a trembling finger. “She is there. I go to her, and I find her. I don’t care where you go, come with, what you do. But I am going to find her.”
“Wait a second. Jeannette’s in Skid Row? You’re not homeless any more, what the hell’s she doing there?”
“Oh ya.” His expression turns bitter, almost contemptuous. “You say I’m not homeless. But I am always homeless man to you. We can live in big house and have all the money but we always be homeless, yaaw?”
“That makes no sense.”
“You wanna know why Jeannette is in Skid Row?” He’s not looking at me now, his gaze somewhere down one of the darkened, ruined streets. “She is an addict. She take meth. She smoke weed. Even when we have nice apartment, even
when I have this job, she not get clean. She keep going back there to find a fix. I say to her, why? I tell her I can help her, I love her, that she must not do these things to herself. Ce n’est pas important.
“And she is like every addict there is. She thinks she is in control. She thinks she can quit when she want, or that she can just go away from me and come back. I am going to find her, and you cannot stop me.”
Jesus.
Why the hell didn’t we know about this? I’ve seen Africa pretty much every day – we all have. And not once does it come up that his girlfriend, the love of his life, was still a drug addict? Not a single time? And when did I even see Jeannette last?
I’ve met her exactly once, long before Africa came to work for us. A skeletal woman with terrified eyes, stick-thin and angry. I just kind of assumed that once Africa came to work for us… I thought she would…
And suddenly, I’ve had enough. Selfish as it is – and it is very selfish, the kind of impulse I normally run a mile from – we’ve got a lot of shit to deal with right now. I do not need to add Africa’s relationship problems into the mix. Not when the earthquake kid is still out there.
And you know what else? I don’t believe him. How many insane, made-up stories has he told us? All that bullshit about working secret service for Obama and smuggling gold in France, when he was probably nothing more than a homeless dude with an overactive imagination.
On one level, I hate these thoughts – hate how nasty and petty and pointless they are. On another, I embrace them. I am done with Africa’s shit.
“Dude,” I say. “I’m sorry. But we gotta go to the Meitzen Museum. Right now. Because we are running real fucking short on time.”
He shakes his head, turns away.
“Fine.” I tell him, walking off. The rain has finally penetrated my Jordans, and they squelch on the muddy tarmac. “Good luck. I don’t even know why you came, anyway.”
I hate how nasty I sound, but I don’t have the energy to care right now. Already I’m thinking ahead, planning my route. There might be more collapsed skyscrapers in the downtown core… I should cut around them if I can, because this is taking way too—
I drop my head. A growl makes its way out of me, digging into my throat. It doesn’t matter how tired I am – I can’t just let Africa head off on some hero hike into the bowels of downtown Los Angeles.
“Look,” I say, turning back. I have to raise my voice for him to hear me. “Right now, nobody knows where Jeannette is. At least go back to Dodger, OK? You’ll be safe there.”
He spits something angry at me in either French or Wolof, I can’t tell.
“I’m trying to help you here, Africa! Don’t be an idiot.”
He stops. Turns to face me. A stick figure in soaking clothes, silhouetted against the glow of the distant stadium. “You wanna know why I come? Why I follow you out here?”
It’s not the response I was expecting, and I have to fumble for an answer. “Because… Reggie asked you to?”
Africa looks away for a moment, like he can’t believe how dense I am. “I come because I wanna help. Same reason I leave the van at the airport, when Mister Germany arrive. Same reason I try and fight off the people who want to steal from us, when we try go to Venice Beach.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Because I want to be good at this job!”
He roars the words. I’d call them overdramatic, if I wasn’t looking him in the eyes. They are as cold and clear as the falling rain.
“Nobody ever give me nothing,” he says. “I make everything for myself. I fight every time. I fight in Senegal and I fight in France and I fight here and I get nothing. But then Reggie and Mrs Tanner come find me; they say you told them I help you, and they offer me job. They offer me job.
“And I want to do it. I see what you can do, all the things you pick up with your powers, and I want to help. Nothing is more important.”
“Oh, come on.”
He acts like he doesn’t hear me. “When you show me what you can do… yaaaaw. Everything change. So I think, hey, Mister Idriss, maybe this is a real story for you.” He sneezes, sending out a spray of water. “I wanted you to like me. But no matter what I do, you didn’t want me there. You just talk to me like I’m stupid – like I am just an immigrant who knows nothing. None of you want me. You all treat me like idiot, every one. Especially you. Don’t worry about it, Africa. Do what I say, Africa. Stop asking questions, yaaw?”
“I didn’t mean it like that—”
“Ya, you do. I know who done what. But now, no more job.”
“Of course you have a job. We’ve still got China Shop.” Even as I say it, I can’t help wondering if it’s really true.
“Office gone,” Africa replies. “City gone. And I think maybe, I must be gone too. I don’t want it any more anyway. You are not worth it.”
“Wow. That’s good, Africa. Let it all out.”
“You have amazing powers.” There’s something else in his voice now – a bitterness. “But you don’t know what you gonna do with them, huh? You not help me. You not help anyone. You nothing more than a dëma.”
“Watch your fucking mouth.” Now I’m pissed. He doesn’t get to talk shit about me like that. Nobody does. My face is so flushed I’m surprised the rain doesn’t steam when it hits me.
“Enough of you,” he says, waving his hand as if dismissing me. “I am going to find Jeannette. You can do this on your own.”
“Oh, that’s how it is. Well, let me tell you something, Africa. You’re not exactly perfect yourself.”
“OK, what I do?”
“You—”
What did Africa do?
He was super hyped-up, all the time. He told wild stories. He kept wanting to hang out, every single day. He was loud and crazy and full-on.
And he’s right: I didn’t want him there. So I did everything I could to make it clear that we were not going to be real friends – and then got irritated with him when he wouldn’t stop trying. Why did I do that? Because he got on my nerves? Paul used to get on my nerves, all the time… and yeah, we had our fights. But thinking about it, I never spoke to him like I spoke to Africa. Mostly because he would never have stood for it.
“What I do?” he says again.
I’m not really seeing him. What I’m seeing is another man, impaled on a steel pole, as the air chokes on smoke and heat and flame. A man begging me to save him.
Carlos.
My best friend. The whiskey-drinking mechanic and wheelman, the cackling Mexican demon who liked nothing better than hanging out and talking endless shit for hours. Who put me to bed when I was drunk, always made sure I had snacks after a job, listened when it was needed and talked when we had to fill the silence.
The Carlos who set me up to be framed for murder. Who planned for me to be collateral in his fucked-up little revenge plot. No matter how many times I tell myself he wasn’t worth it, that he betrayed everything we had together, he keeps coming back.
I don’t make a habit of lying – either to myself, or other people. So why don’t we fucking be honest here? It’s not Africa’s energy, or his personality, or any of that shit. It’s because every time I look at him, he reminds me of the dude he replaced.
He kisses his teeth, starts walking again.
“You’re right.”
I have to say it a second time before he stops. Even then, he doesn’t turn around.
“I didn’t mean to act the way I did,” I say into the rain. “It was just… It’s complicated. There’s a lot that happened before you got here. And you are good at the job. Without you, the whole airport mission would have been toast.”
Long seconds tick by.
I blink the raindrops away. “I promise you when this is all over, we’ll talk, OK? We’ll figure it out.”
He lets out a shivering sigh. “So now you say… what? You cannot make it to the museum without me?”
Actually, yes, I was about to do just that. And yes, it would have
been bullshit. Technically, there’s no need for him to be here – I could easily have handled this. I debate for a second whether to bluff it out.
“You don’t have to be here, if you don’t want to. I can head down there. If you really still want to go back and find Jeannette, I won’t stop you. But…”
“But what?”
I look down. “But I’d really like the company.” Now I am crying. Tears pricking at my eyes. “It’s been a pretty shitty day.”
He laughs, exhausted. Spent. “Ya.”
We’re silent for a few seconds. No sound but the pattering rain, the distant shouts of the emergency crews. Trying to salvage something from this giant, flaming clusterfuck.
“Jeannette is tough,” he says, to himself rather than to me. “She will be fine. So we will go to the museum.”
“You don’t have to,” I say quickly.
“No, we must. And she is also probably away from the rain now. She find shelter for sure.”
“Where? Like an abandoned building or some shit?”
“She will have her tent. Even if an earthquake knock it down, she just put it right back up. You think an earthquake is worst thing for homeless people? What can it destroy for us? Our tents are knocked down by police all the time. We rebuild every day.”
“Right. Of course.” Strangely, his little speech cheers me up, despite me being a dumbass. Harry – the homeless guy from my neighbourhood – will probably be OK too. I’ll have to remember to say hi to him when I get back, maybe strike up an actual conversation with him. You know, assuming we don’t die.
“Now come on.” He strides past me. “We still have long way.”
We’re not done talking. Not even close. But even after all the shit I pulled, he’s not leaving me alone.
That’s good enough for now.
THIRTY-SIX
Teagan
Once we’re actually past the hell of Downtown, we make surprisingly good time. It’s around 11 p.m. when we finally hit the intersection of Figueroa and Exposition. The museum should be dead ahead.
